


Wishes

by Marcuria



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Pining, based on in-game demo quests, brief-ish appearances of ignis and gladio, will probably end up being really ooc when the full game is released but w/e
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 21:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7548346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcuria/pseuds/Marcuria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you see a shooting star, you’re supposed to make a wish. But the only thing Noctis wants is the one thing he thinks he can’t have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wishes

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Ignis’s sidequest in Episode Duscae, when he asks Noctis what he’ll wish for on the shooting star. I was actually really curious about what Noctis would say, and was thus somewhat disappointed when he just said “more wishes.” So I put my Promptis glasses on and decided to write my own interpretation of what he might actually want to wish for—and then that turned into this mess of sappiness and probably ooc Noctis-Thought-Ramblings. 
> 
> I said inspired by above, but this is also based directly on Ignis and Prompto’s sidequests, so some of the dialogue comes straight from the game itself. This is really just self-indulgent demo Promptis I couldn't get out of my head. :^)

“For all the nights I’ve spent staring at the sky, I’ve still never seen a shooting star.”

The realization came to Noctis as he trailed behind Ignis through the vast Duscaen landscape, searching for the perfect spot to watch the coming meteor shower. The older man regarded his musings with a nod he didn’t bother turning around to give. Noctis wasn’t looking at him anyway.

“That should change tonight. Any idea of what you’ll wish for?”

The question caught Noctis off guard. When he’d agreed to join Ignis on his tour of the night sky, his only expectation had been to search for a relatively safe place to seat him and his advisor, and then to lose himself in the thousands of stars above—stars he didn’t often get the chance to see. No one told him the trip would require any sort of _thinking_ , even if it was only of what he’d want.

What _should_ he wish for?

Peace? Safety? Protection for his friends and family?

Wishes were supposed to be selfish, weren’t they? In a way, at least. Wishes were supposed to be about what _you_ want. Times were troubled enough already that he deserved a moment of selfishness, if only to hold onto his sanity.

So… what did Noctis want?

The first image that came to mind was of blond hair and freckled skin, but Noctis quickly shook it away before he lost himself in yearnings and daydreams. His wish should be at least _somewhat_ realistic, and that…

That would never happen. _Could_ never happen. Or at least Noctis had long since convinced himself of that.

But when he took that idea away, he was surprised to find himself quite lacking in the “what I want” department. More sleep and a comfortable bed weren’t exactly shooting star worthy wishes. Maybe he should wish for a really good steak from the next garula they fought? Or to go a day without getting attacked by the empire? He had no idea.

So, after a pause, Noctis parted his lips to speak and prayed an answer would come to him.

In the end, he deflected.

“Easy – more wishes.”

How he managed to sound so confident, he wasn’t quite sure. But he was grateful, because Ignis merely laughed and let the subject drop.

He still had time before he really needed to decide, after all.

* * *

“Should be able to get some pretty good shots of the stars tonight.”

Dusk came, and the sun was setting before the pair as they shuffled together and sat down on a particularly large rock.

Ignis brushed off his jacket absentmindedly and settled himself beside Noctis, the sun just barely peeking out beyond the hills now. His lip twitched upward with a teasing remark.

“Far better than the ones you tried taking as a child.”

Noctis huffed back, grinning despite himself. “Would’ve been fine if someone had told me to take the lens cap off.”

The night grew darker with each passing minute, so Ignis flipped the light attached to his jacket on, and then he leaned over and did the same for Noctis when the prince seemed more interested in fishing his phone out of his pocket than being able to see. With a swipe, Noctis’s phone lit up, and he tapped the camera app at the top so it would be open and ready to catch any shooting stars that passed over them.

Prompto would be disappointed if he didn’t come back with pictures, after all.

Sure, they _could_ just bring him and Gladio back the next night, (and, assuming there really was a meteor shower coming, he already planned to do just that), but he knew Prompto wouldn’t want to have to wait to see it.

Plus, hovering over a phone together gave Noctis the perfect excuse to get close to his blond friend for a (somewhat) extended period of time. And Prompto always shot him the most beautiful smile whenever Noctis had something to show him. The kind that made his stomach do somersaults and his heart flutter in the most embarrassing way.

So, yes, while Noctis had convinced himself that he and Prompto would never be together, he was apparently enough of a masochist that he still did everything he could to be around him.

Sometimes he wondered if he had any sense at all.

He held the phone tight in his hand, the camera blackened out from the dark fabric of his pants. Just the ‘ding!’ of the app opening and the sight of the snapshot button reminded him of Prompto.

To be fair, cameras and photos in general reminded him of Prompto. It was a fond feeling, to have something so closely associated with preserving memories tied to his best friend. Prompto documented nearly everything they did, “so we’ll never forget our time together,” as he often put it.

Noctis typically had to stop himself from saying that memories wouldn’t matter as much if they could be together _forever_ whenever Prompto got sad about that sort of thing—not only because it’d expose his feelings for his friend, but because it was just really fucking embarrassing to _think_ , let alone say out loud.

Noctis groaned at the thought.

He had it _bad._

“Are you alright, Highness?”

Ignis’s voice broke the silence that had fallen over them, and Noctis cringed inwardly. Had he actually groaned out loud? He hoped that had been more of a metaphorical thing.

“What?”

“You groaned out of nowhere. Is something the matter?”

_Shit._

“No—I… No, sorry, I’m fine. I just… wish the meteor shower would hurry up already.”

“Careful with those wishes,” Ignis chuckled. “You wouldn’t want to waste them.”

Well, _fuck_ , Noctis thought, and this time his groan _was_ of the metaphorical nature. He’d forgotten about the whole wish thing. All that time he should have spent thinking of what to wish for, and he’d wasted it thinking of Prompto.

_No_ , he frowned. Thinking about Prompto was never a waste. Prompto made him happy—made him feel real, made him feel _normal_ , like he was an actual person instead of just a title.

“It’s time!” Ignis shouted. Had Noctis’s thought capacity not been filled up by a certain freckled friend, he would have laughed at how excited Ignis sounded, waving his hands and pointing up at the stars with wide, captivated eyes.

Instead, Noctis jumped from the sudden call of his mentor’s voice and fumbled to hold his phone up to the right spot, his fingers warm and slippery against its cool case. Prompto was going to be the death of him, he swore to himself. Just thinking about him did things to Noctis that he still didn’t understand, even months after Noctis had acknowledged his feelings for him.

(To himself, at least).

* * *

“Gotta hand it to you, Ignis. I can’t believe you remember so much from when we were kids.”

“Our past forms the foundation of our present. We mustn’t forget that which made us what we are. A stellar sight, though. Pity the others aren’t here to enjoy it with us.”

Noctis shrugged, already imagining the smiles Prompto would give him when he showed him all the photos he took. “No reason we can’t bring ‘em back with us tomorrow.”

He swiped back and forth between each of the pictures, following Ignis back to camp on autopilot. The fifth one was his winner, Noctis decided. That’s the one that would get him Prompto’s most beautiful smile, the one that made his eyes light up and crinkle around the corners and left Noctis feeling dizzy.

Walking back under the light of the stars, his mind occupied by his photos and his thoughts of Prompto’s smiles, Noctis lost track of what he was supposed to do in the first place.

He forgot to make a wish.

* * *

When Noctis and Ignis returned to camp, Prompto was already eagerly waiting outside the tent, bouncing up and down on the backs of his boots. Noctis’s chest tightened at the sight of him waiting there, and he was overcome by a sudden longing he had never felt so strongly before.

He almost wished he was engaged to Prompto, instead of Luna. Then everything would be so much easier. It wasn't that he didn’t love Luna, because he did, in one way or another. She was one of his closest friends and he would always be there for her, but at the end of the day he simply wasn’t _in_ love with her. There was a difference between wanting someone in your life, and wanting someone to share your life, he felt, and at times Noctis thought Luna might feel the same—that she loved him but wasn’t _in_ love with him and wished she were free to marry whomever she chose.

He contemplated the idea of wishing he actually was engaged to Prompto tomorrow night, during the next shooting star, but the idea seemed almost pointless. Wishing on a star couldn’t magically change the past and make Prompto and Luna switch places. Besides, Noctis didn’t want to change the memories he already had with either of them.

So he sighed and told his overactive imagination to fuck off, then greeted Prompto with a crooked smile, knowing exactly what his friend was waiting for.

“Noct!” Prompto grinned. “Did you have fun? How was it? Did you take pictures? You took pictures, right?” For the slightest second, Prompto’s grin sunk, and his eyes clouded with something like doubt. But then Noctis held his phone up and his smirk widened, and Prompto’s grin came back in full force. “Of _course_ you took pictures! Let me see!”

Prompto lunged towards Noctis and his phone, and for a quick moment Noctis considered teasing his chocobo-haired friend by lifting his arm and holding his phone just out of reach. But his heart was already fluttering a sickening amount and he desperately needed an excuse to touch Prompto, so he let the other boy come up beside him and smush their arms together so they could both see the screen.

Behind them, Noctis could hear Gladio ask Ignis how the trip had gone, and he just barely heard Ignis begin a pleased retelling before every sound was drowned out by Prompto’s excited squeaks.

Noctis held the phone in one hand, and seeing as how his other hand was trapped at his side, Prompto took charge of swiping the pictures, ‘ooh-ing’ and ‘awe-ing’ at each one.

Not that Noctis was complaining, because he wasn’t. Prompto had even twisted his own arm free from their smush to rest on Noctis’s back, and in doing so, pushed his hip further into the dark-haired prince and pinned his arm at his side. It was actually somewhat uncomfortable, but Noctis would gladly suffer through it if it meant Prompto would stay this close to him.

After another pause, Prompto swiped his finger a fourth time and, in his excitement, didn’t seem to notice that Noctis had stopped looking at the photos entirely.

The light of the campfire behind them danced with the shadows on Prompto’s face, and Noctis couldn’t help but stare at him. He silently hoped he could play off the blush on his cheeks as being tired from the walk back to camp, should anyone notice.

And then it happened.

With another swipe, Prompto gasped, his eyes widened, and he turned to Noctis and gave him that breathtaking smile the prince had been waiting for all night.

“This is it, Noct! The winner. One of the best ones we've taken the whole trip, I'd wager—you’ll send it to me, right? Or I guess I could text it to myself right now…”

“I thought you’d like that one,” Noctis said. He gave a nod to urge Prompto on, so the other boy started tapping around on Noctis’s phone to send the photo to his own.

Prompto clearly found it somewhat difficult to text himself with one hand, and he stuck his tongue out in what Noctis would call the cutest expression of concentration. He wondered why Prompto didn’t just take the phone in both hands and run off with it, (it wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before), but he either hadn’t thought of that or was just as reluctant as Noctis to pull apart from each other.

It was probably the first one, Noctis thought.

But he couldn’t help but hope it was the second.

* * *

Noctis awoke the next morning when two hands grabbed onto his arm and pulled him up from his place of slumber within the tent. He didn’t even have to open his eyes to know it was Prompto, the boy’s energy and warmth radiating off him like he was the sun itself.

After Prompto had finished texting himself the night before, Noctis excused himself under the guise of going to bed and fell asleep soon after. He wanted to stay up with everyone, but his legs had felt like jelly and his heart was beating so fast he thought Prompto would _have_ to figure out what his presence was doing to him. Or he might just faint right on the spot.

Both were equally embarrassing.

“Noct! Wake up,” Prompto said, pulling Noctis into a sitting position and settling himself down right in front of him. “I heard that if you sleep too long your eyes can glue themselves shut.”

Noctis snorted, waving him off. “That’s ridiculous.”

“You won’t be laughing when you can’t open your eyes anymore!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Noctis blinked, his eyes adjusting to the light spilling in from outside. When his vision cleared and it didn’t hurt to keep them open, he gave Prompto a very purposeful stare. “See? Fine.”

“For now!” Prompto laughed. Noctis cracked half a smile at the sound alone. “So, listen, I was talking with Ignis, and he told me Duscae is famous for its fantastic fungus. Wanna go find some for him?”

Noctis frowned. Go out? Now? All he really wanted to do was go back to sleep.

“If he needs ingredients, why doesn’t he just buy them at the post up the road?” _And leave me out of it_ , Noctis thought.

Prompto pouted, whining, “But he always does everything for us. C’mon, it’ll be an adventure! Let’s go put the ‘fun’ back in ‘fungus’!”

If it were anyone else, Noctis would have rolled his eyes and gone straight back to sleep without a word. But Prompto was too cute for his own good (and for Noctis’s own good too, if he was being honest), so he just shrugged to maintain his façade of “coolness” and let Prompto drag him up and out of the tent.

“Where are you guys headed?” Gladio called out from the other side of the campsite. He was crouched down over one of their folding chairs, fixing one of the legs that, for whatever reason, was no longer connected to the chair.

What happened last night?

Prompto led Noctis away from camp, a hand on the dark-haired boy’s wrist. He turned around at Gladio’s question, but kept walking. _Backwards._ Noctis silently prayed he didn’t trip over a rock or something and knock them both off the small cliff they’d camped on.

“On an adventure!” Prompto shouted back. Apparently that was answer enough for Gladio, because he just laughed and shook his head and returned to work.

Prompto seemed to know where he was going, (or he faked it well enough), so Noctis was content to let him take the lead. It gave him time to wake up, at least. Prompto was still pulling him along, so Noctis barely even had to make the effort to move, let alone think about where they were going.

It was during this “wake up time” that Noctis realized he was alone with Prompto for what felt like the first time in forever. It seemed like Ignis or Gladio were always around, which wasn’t a bad thing in itself, it just made it hard to stare at his freckled friend without worrying about someone noticing and asking questions Noctis did _not_ want to answer. Prompto didn’t count because he was usually too excited about something else to notice that Noctis was looking at _him_ and not whatever he was trying to show him.

Not only that, but Noctis had spent most of the last couple days out on tours with Ignis or sparring with Gladio, so it was about time he went out with Prompto, even in the most platonic, friendly sense.

And in a not-so-platonic sense, Prompto was _still_ holding his wrist, so not only was he alone with the object of his affections, but he currently had skin-on-skin contact with him too. Or as much contact Prompto’s hand could give him with fingerless gloves on.

Whatever, it was better than nothing. Noctis had long since learned to take what he could get and celebrate the little things between them.

Prompto eventually stopped them at a small gathering beside one of the many trees that filled Duscae and let go of Noctis’s hand, much to the latter’s disappointment. After a couple minutes of searching (all Prompto, as Noctis still had no idea what they were really looking for), Prompto held up a handful of mushrooms and shrugged.

“Not my type of stipe, but I guess this is what he wants. Let’s keep looking!”

Prompto shoved the mushrooms into his pocket and headed off in a new direction before Noctis could get a word in. Namely—

_How do you even know where to find these?_

_Why are you putting them in your pocket? (Won’t that ruin them?)_

And, at what Noctis felt was his lowest—

_Can you hold my hand again?_

He kept the last one quiet for obvious reasons, but he didn’t bother with the other two either as he figured Prompto more than likely didn’t know the answers himself. He was slightly concerned that Prompto might ruin all the mushrooms before they got back, essentially making their trip a waste, but since they didn’t bring anything to carry them in pointing out Prompto’s blunder would mean one of them would have to carry them in their hands.

Noctis definitely didn’t want suspicious mushrooms in his hands all day, and the only thing he wanted in Prompto’s hand was his own, so he simply jogged a few feet to catch up to the other boy and let his questions fly away with the wind.

“Hey, Prom,” Noctis said, after a few minutes of comfortably quiet walking.

“What’s up, Noct?”

“Why was the chair back at camp broken?”

Prompto’s face immediately turned red and he scratched the back of his head with a nervous chuckle. “Well…” he said. “You see, ah…”

“What?”

“Look, don’t laugh at me, okay?”

“You know I don’t really mean it.”

“Yeah—okay, okay,” Prompto huffed. “After you went to sleep, I kept looking at the pictures—because, like, they were really good. You’re getting better at taking photos, you know that, Noct? I really liked—“

“Prompto.”

“What?”

“Chair. Broken. Why.”

“Ugh, fine, _okay._ I wanted to grab a snack before bed but I was really distracted looking at the pictures and I might have walked right into the chair and tripped and fallen on top of it and the leg _might_ have broken when that might have happened.”

Noctis burst out laughing.

“Hey, Noct! It’s not funny! I bruised my stomach landing on that thing!” Prompto sidestepped in front of Noctis and frowned, stopping them both in place. He grabbed the ends of his shirt and lifted it up, pointing at a purple bruise that had formed just above his belt. “See! That shit hurt.”

Noctis was too distracted by the fact that he could see Prompto’s bare skin to recognize the dark blemish on it. His laughter died in his throat, and he could feel his face warming up.

_Abort._

_Abort._

_ABORT._

Noctis shot his chin up, walking around Prompto with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Don’t be such a baby,” he said. “It’s not even that big a bruise.”

In all honesty, he had no idea how big the bruise was, and in even more honesty, he was sort of being an asshole. But that was better than whatever would have happened if he’d let himself keep staring at Prompto.

Prompto blushed, shoving his shirt back down as he ran to catch up to Noctis. “Shut up, Noct, you don’t even know!”

“Know what?”

“Anything! … I-I don’t know.”

“I think we _all_ know that.”

“What? Hey!”

Luckily for Noctis, Prompto started laughing, which meant he wasn’t mad or offended or (most importantly), hadn’t noticed any suspicious blushing from his best friend.

So Noctis laughed back, and together they spent a long while laughing for reasons neither of them really knew.

* * *

“Not bad, but it feels a little ‘always a shroomsman, never a shroom’.”

Noctis had little to no idea what that meant.

“Our chef has got four pretty discerning eyes. I don’t think he’ll go for this one…” Prompto trailed off, shoving another pair of mushrooms into his pockets with a dissatisfied frown.

Noctis’s feet were starting to get sore, aching with tiny little twinges of pain every couple steps across the uneven Duscaen terrain, but he knew Prompto would feel guilty if he told him that, so he kept it to himself. Looking for mushrooms was pretty boring, and by afternoon the sun was beating down on the pair, leaving Noctis tired and sweaty for the worst reasons.

“Hey, Noct, how about we try somewhere new?”

Noctis nearly groaned at the idea, more than ready to collapse back at camp and sleep for the next two days. “Somewhere new? Haven’t we found enough?” he complained, but he sighed a moment later and resolved himself to another hour or two of hunting.

After all, Prompto wasn’t happy yet, and, by default, that meant Noctis wasn’t happy either. Despite any trouble Prompto’s quest might cause, Noctis was going to see it through to the end. Because he loved him or some shit like that.

“Nah, but we’re almost there!” Prompto jumped up, his grin infectious. “Got a lucky hunch about that lake.”

“Then to the lake it is,” Noctis agreed. Without thinking, he held his arm out for Prompto, like a suitor offering his arm to a lady.

He froze at the implication. His mind desperately searched for a way to play off the movement (he saw a bee and tried to elbow it maybe?), but before he really had time to panic, Prompto smiled with pink cheeks and accepted the offer, linking their arms together.

So he wasn’t _exactly_ holding onto Noctis like a lady might for her suitor. But he _did_ take Noctis’s arm, didn’t he?

Noctis let out a breath of relief, grateful that, once again, he’d somehow managed to avoid an awkward situation. He quickly revisited that breath when he sucked it back in just moments later, however, when their linked arms became linked hands.

As they walked, Prompto let his hand slide down, his arm straightening out until his fingers brushed against Noctis’s own. The contact sent a surge of electricity through Noctis, like someone had cast a thundaga spell into his bloodstream. And then he took the prince’s hand without a word, his face stuck forward as if he was scared to look back and see a rejection.

Far be it from Noctis to reject anything Prompto wanted to give him, so with his heart beating wildly in his chest, Noctis squeezed Prompto’s hand in a gesture he hoped said “I want this too.”

In fact, he wanted it more than _anything._

* * *

When they reached the lake and began searching for Duscae’s best mushrooms, neither Noctis nor Prompto made any effort to part their hand-holding. They simply stretched as far as they could, stepping over rocks and peeking into the water with their arms out wide but their fingers still clasped together.

Noctis honestly had no idea what was going on. But he also didn’t care. All that mattered was the sun was out and nobody was attacking him and Prompto was holding his hand.

Especially that last part.

They hadn’t said a word about it, and yet it all felt so natural. That was one of the things Noctis loved most about Prompto—how easy it was to be with him. They always seemed to know what the other was thinking without having to say anything at all.

“Hey, Noct, over here!” Prompto called, tugging on Noctis’s hand. He stepped into the water, his boots squishing in all the mud. “I found one Ignis is gonna love!” He pulled half-broken pieces of mushrooms out of his pockets, flinging them out of sight. “Forget all those other mushrooms, these are perfect!”

Noctis joined him by the water’s edge, just a foot or two behind him to keep in the grass. Prompto may have been eager to ruin his shoes, but Noctis had no desire to spend an hour picking mud and leaves out of his soles or hear the accompanying lecture from Ignis.

Prompto picked up a couple sunken mushrooms with his free hand, unintentionally pulling Noctis forward every time he bent down to grab another. It didn’t bother him at first, until Noctis realized that their up-down movement and splashing was catching the attention of a nearby catoblepa.

“Prom, let’s go,” Noctis said. He turned to lead the pair back to camp, but after a couple steps realized that Prompto seemed to be refusing to join him. “Prompto?”

Prompto’s hand tightened around Noctis’s, and not so much in a romantic way but a terrified and clinging for life way.

“You all right?” Noctis asked. A hint of worry crept into his voice and he turned back around to the sight of Prompto twisting around in the water.

“Help! The lake’s got my leg!”

Noctis frowned, glancing at the catoblepa heading towards them. “Really not in the mood for one of your pranks, Prompto.”

“I’m funny, but I’m not THAT funny—I don’t wanna die like this!”

As much as Noctis didn’t want to let go of Prompto’s hand, he figured saving his life was worth the loss. With both hands free, Noctis wrapped them around Prompto’s stuck leg and pulled, his arms pressed to either side of Prompto’s thigh. If only they weren’t about to die, Noctis thought, because he rarely got the excuse to touch Prompto like this and it wasn’t exactly like he had the time to enjoy it.

With a long heave, Noctis tried to yank his leg out of what was clearly some kind of extra-strength super glue, not mud, below the water. His heart sped a beat faster with every failed attempt.

“It’s stuck!” Prompto cried.

“No shit, Prom, that’s why I’m trying to UN-stick it!”

The catoblepa pounded down with another heaving step towards the pair, and by the force of the step or Noctis’s pulling or dumb luck or some combination of the three, Prompto’s leg came flying out of the not-mud.

Noctis immediately grabbed his blond friend’s hand, running them both away from the water and as far from the giant beast as possible. His heart pounded so rapidly, struggling up the grassy hills with Prompto's wet, muddy boots sticking to the ground each step, he thought it might burst right out of his chest.

Suddenly, the catoblepa let out a screech, and on pure instinct Noctis threw them both behind a rock big enough to hide their slumped, exhausted selves. Collapsed on the grass with their eyes staring unfocused up at the sky, it took a minute for them to catch their breath before they could even say anything.

“Thanks for saving me.”

Noctis choked out a laugh.

“Anytime.”

“Sooo… confession,” Prompto mumbled. “All our mushrooms are at the bottom of the lake.”

He knew he should be annoyed, but Noctis didn’t have it in him to be upset. “Better them than you,” he said, and he took Prompto’s hand again and squeezed it tight. Prompto's breath hitched at the action, but Noctis was lost looking up at the sky and didn’t notice.

“No point crying over spilt mushrooms. Ignis’ll understand.”

“But I put you through all that trouble for nothing…”

“Nothing? This story’s worth way more than a few fungi.”

And then Noctis laughed. He laughed because they spent the whole day looking for mushrooms that were now at the bottom of the lake. He laughed because he was holding Prompto’s hand and Prompto was holding his back and he had no idea what that meant for them. He laughed because he was still clueless on what to wish for.

And he laughed because it just felt like the right thing to do.

* * *

Later that afternoon, on the way back to camp, Noctis tried to mentally prepare himself for a lecture from Ignis about running off and needlessly getting himself into danger. The knots in his stomach eased only when he realized that Prompto would probably get the worst of it, but even that knowledge didn’t help much.

However, to Noctis’s surprise, he and Prompto got off fairly easy after they’d stepped into camp and been bombarded with questions about why they’d been gone so long and why they were covered in dirt. Their hands had broken apart when they caught sight of Ignis, but if the older man noticed the action, he didn’t comment on it.

Noctis wasn’t sure which way he wanted that to go anyway, so if Ignis was choosing to keep quiet, then Noctis would keep quiet too.

He knew Ignis had a much more pertinent sermon waiting on the tip of his tongue, itching to be let lose, but at the sight of Prompto’s pitiful, nervous state something in Ignis must have flipped because he instead spent the following hour doting over Prompto like a concerned mother.

Prompto shot Noctis a look that screamed “save me” when Ignis began brushing him off and told him to sit down, but Noctis just grinned back, threw him a wave, and darted into the tent before Ignis could see the marks and scruffs he held too.

He’d already saved Prompto once that day, after all.

It was naptime.

* * *

That night, after all the commotion of the day, Noctis and Ignis announced that they’d be taking Prompto and Gladio back to the spot they found to watch the next meteor shower with them. Prompto immediately threw himself into the tent to search for his camera, while Gladio simply stood up, stretched, and clapped Ignis on the back with a, “Can’t wait.”

Prompto asked ridiculous questions most of the walk back, questions that Ignis regarded with unamused answers Gladio then made jokes about. Noctis kept quiet most of the way, his insides twisting and turning. He thought he might have heard something about the chances of shooting stars ever killing people (“What if it like, hit them in the head or something?!”) before he tuned out the noise of his companions entirely.

He still didn’t know what to wish for.

It’d been okay to miss his wish yesterday, because he knew he’d have another chance when they all came back together and watched the shower again. But now he was _in_ the moment they were all together and he couldn’t be sure he’d get a third chance to try again.

It was now or never.

Noctis knew he didn’t want to wish for some selfless dream of world peace or something. Not only was that extremely unlikely to work, he wanted to take his one chance at asking for something entirely selfish. But he also didn’t want to waste his wish on problems that would eventually pass. He wouldn’t be sleeping in tents and scavenging for food forever, after all.

That left Noctis with his one real desire in life—to be with Prompto. But what should he wish for? For Prompto to be in love with him? For some way he could fulfill his role as a prince and future king and still get to be with his best friend?

Was any wish he could think of even fair to Prompto himself? Sure, Prompto had held his hand earlier, but that didn’t mean he wanted to marry Noctis or returned any of the feelings Noctis harbored for him. Prompto was a pretty affectionate guy to begin with, so, though it made Noctis’s heart sink to consider, his hand holding might have been entirely platonic in his eyes.

But then Noctis and his companions stopped, the stars lit up above them, and Prompto bumped into his arm with the smallest of smiles and a line of pink dusting his cheeks. And then Prompto touched his hand to Noctis’s, inching closer and closer until their hands were palm to palm, and all of a sudden it all became clear to the dark-haired prince.

He didn’t need to _wish_ to be with Prompto. He didn’t need a wish at all.

Everything he could ask for was already right in front of him. He was so focused on the long term, he’d never stopped to realize that Prompto was already with him _right now._

No matter how long it lasted, Noctis didn’t want to ask for daydreams and hopes for the future or spend all his time thinking about what _could_ be. He wanted to live in the reality he had right now, even if it just meant he got to hold Prompto’s hand sometimes and wake up to his smiles for a few more mornings.

So he squeezed Prompto’s hand back, and for the first time in a long time Noctis let his worries and thoughts fade into the back of his mind.

Years from now, when he looked back on this moment, he didn’t want to remember stressing out about deciding on some wish or the way his insides felt when he couldn’t think of something. He wanted to remember how beautiful the stars were, how relaxed Ignis and Gladio looked pointing out constellations together, and how Prompto’s hand fit perfectly in his.

In the minute that followed that revelation, two things happened.

One, the shooting star they were waiting for shot through the sky and passed over them, dancing against the rest of the stars in a flash of color.

Two, Prompto took Noctis’s face in both of his hands and kissed him.

* * *

It felt like hours passed in the minutes before Ignis and Gladio took the lead back to camp. They were far ahead of him and Prompto now, though if that was an intentional move to give them space or Noctis's own fault for short-circuiting and forgetting how to move his body properly, he didn't know. He was fairly certain they’d seen everything, though—they had to have, right? Were they talking about it right now?

Prompto had kissed him right behind them, there was no way they could have missed it.

_Kissed_ him.

Noctis still wasn’t completely sure he wasn’t dreaming. He did sleep a lot, and dreams of Prompto were not all that uncommon for him. Was Prompto really lacing their fingers together and shooting him those shy smiles? It certainly _felt_ real enough.

“What did you wish for?”

The sound of Prompto’s voice shook him out of his thoughts.

“Nothing.”

"What?!" Prompto gasped, his free hand flying up to his chest. “Why not?”

“Because…” Noctis paused, unsure. If Prompto was brave enough to _kiss_ him, Noctis could swallow his embarrassment for a minute and be honest back. “Because you’re already right here.”

Prompto gaped at him, unblinking, like he was trying to process Noctis’s words. His pink cheeks turned a deep red, noticeable even in the dark, and despite the cool air Noctis felt incredibly warm. If only he could distinguish the thoughts in his head as anything more than the static buzzing they currently were, he would have taken pride in rendering Prompto speechless.

But doing so now would feel far too hypocritical, since Noctis was still bordering near speechless himself.

“O-Oh… Noct, that’s…”

“Er, too corny...?” Noctis scratched the back of his head with his free hand, almost wondering if his confession really had been too sappy. But, to be fair, Prompto clearly thought the best time to kiss him was during a shooting star, so Noctis felt they were pretty even when it came to romantic clichés.

“Really fucking sweet. Like, the sweetest. My heart is literally pounding right now and I’m only telling you that because I’m hoping saying it out loud will make me chill out or something.”

Noctis couldn’t help but smile. “So… what did _you_ wish for?”

“Me?” Prompto blinked, his voice cracking. He broke their stare and looked away, shrugging in a way he probably hoped was casual and unassuming but, to Noctis's carefully trained eye, was oozing anxiety. “Uh, nothing.”

“Come on, Prom. Just tell me. It can’t be any more embarrassing than what you already did.” Just in case, Noctis quickly added, “I promise I won’t laugh.”

Prompto sighed. “Okay, just… okay. I… sort of wished for the confidence to be able to kiss you. I’ve wanted to for like, a really, really long time. And then when we held hands today, I thought that was the sign I’d been looking for that you liked me too. But I was still too scared to really do anything about it.”

Noctis _really_ hoped he wasn’t dreaming. How much time had they wasted dancing around each other because they were too afraid to tell the truth?

He wasn’t sure he’d ever have the bravery to be so honest with his feelings again, and since they were already in the moment, he very impulsively decided to take a chance.

“I love you.”

Maybe it was too soon to say it. But it was true, and since Noctis didn’t know how long he and Prompto had, how many more nights they could spend under the same stars before everything inevitably went to hell, he wanted Prompto to know exactly how he felt from the very beginning.

“What?!”

“I just…” Noctis shrugged. Why was this sort of thing so hard for him? “…Wanted you to know. That no matter what happens…”

Prompto stopped them in place, taking Noctis’s other hand and pulling him closer so they faced each other. They fell in place naturally, their foreheads resting against the other's. “Hey, Noct? Can we not think about the future right now? Instead, um…” Prompto’s voice went down to a whisper, but their faces were so close Noctis heard every word as if he was shouting. “I think you should just kiss me.”

Noctis let out a breath of relief, smiling. “I can do that.”

This time, it was Noctis who placed his hands on Prompto’s face, tilting the blond’s chin up and pressing their lips together clumsily. Actions were so much easier than words, he thought idly, and even though it was obvious that neither of them knew what they were doing, the feeling of Prompto's lips against his was an addicting sensation.

He felt Prompto grin into their kiss, and it was several more seconds before Prompto pulled back and brought his own hands up to meet Noctis’s, holding them against his flushed cheeks.

“Noct?” he whispered, his breath hot against Noctis’s parted lips.

Noctis found it hard to breathe, let alone speak anymore, but he managed to ghost out a, “Yeah?”

“I love you too,” Prompto smiled. A pause, and then, “No matter what happens.”

Noctis kissed him again.


End file.
